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A Barbecuer's Cheeseburger at Zeke's Smokehouse in West Hollywood, CA

Posted by Damon Gambuto, October 28, 2009 at 2:15 PM

[Photographs: Damon Gambuto]

I first headed to Zeke's Smokehouse about six years ago when it opened to a slew of favorable reviews. I jumped in my car on a quiet Los Angeles Sunday afternoon and headed to the even quieter community of Montrose. This bastion of suburban tranquility sits about twenty minutes northeast of the city, and my visit there was a small education in the virtues of suburbia and its obsessions. In this case, two lifelong restaurant men devoted their idle, middle-aged hours to meat, experimenting for two years on their barbecue until finally settling on a deep, smokey recipe. It's the kind of thing you can imagine two obsessive dads making a weekend project of for years.

I remember eating my meal in the self-consciously homey restaurant that looked as though it was built to launch a franchise. I watched families enjoying the waning hours of the weekend's freedom. It all seemed a good life, if wholly separate from the one I was living.

While my age has trundled perilously close too the swollen midsection of my life (and body), I am, in most ways, still miles away from Zeke's suburban idyll. Happily, the owners have opened a second outpost in West Hollywood. I know that the barbecue is first rate, so this time seconds would be a burger.

A Barbecue Business Is Born

Going to a barbecue restaurant for a burger offends some people's sensibilities. Why go to a place for a burger when they are committed to a whole separate preparation of meat? When I last reviewed a burger from a barbecue joint, some folks said as much. Let me tell you a little about how Zeke's came to be.

As I mentioned, two men who came up with the idea for Zeke's have spent their adult lives as restaurant professionals. Michael Rosen grew up outside of Philadelphia short order cooking for his parents' diner. A Southern California holiday turned into a life choice, and Rosen found himself bouncing around some of the best kitchens in Los Angeles. It was at the upscale eatery Maple Drive (which I remember fondly as the de facto lunchroom for the big wigs at my very first job in Hollywood) where he met restaurateur Leonard Schwartz. The two embarked on their barbecue experiment and eventually asked Gelsinger's Meats, a fifty-plus-year Montrose institution, to serve as supplier and smoker. When the Gelsinger's tasted the results, they wanted in.

So if it's not clear, Rosen and Schwartz came up with a barbecue recipe so good that a butcher with over fifty years of experience with meat asked to partner with them. Yes, I'll try the burger too, thank you.

A Burger with Impressive Char

The Zekeburger is a hefty eight-ounce patty that splits the meat/fat at a standard 80/20. The grind is medium and the patty is formed slimmer than the usual eight-ouncer to fit the sizable sesame seed bun that has the look and feel of the fancy burger buns at the supermarket.

I get mine with a slice of cheddar and for good measure I sample the Lonestar Cheeseburger, which comes with barbecue sauce, pepper jack cheese, bacon, and onions rings (all on the burger), as well as the Kick Ass Chili Cheeseburger, which demanded my attention due to its audacious nomenclature.

The Zekeburger arrives with a touch of that diner look as the meat, cheese, and bun sit all by themselves and the veggies huddle in the corner of the plate. It's a presentation that seems to say, "If you must" when it comes to the condiments. In this case, I don't need them.

Even the sizable, squishy bun can't contain all of the juices of this patty. The simple meat, cheese and bread combination is excellent. The patty has one of the deeper chars I've come across, yet the middle is still beautifully pink. The juice that drips out doesn't seem to leave the burger any less moist as each mouthful has just the right amount of wetness to balance the carbon of the crust. My only problem is with the choice of the bun: While understandable considering the mass of the patty, it seems a tad too much. I enjoy the texture, but find myself thinking that there's just a bit too much heft to it.

The Kick Ass Chili Cheeseburger has many the virtues of the Zekeburger, but the chili seems an unnecessary addition of flavor. It masks the quality and flavor of the beef.

The Lonestar is a behemoth that I expected to eat like a second rate carnival ride, but it's surprisingly balanced. I'm pleasantly surprised by the sweetness of the barbecue sauce and the added texture of the rings. I don't know if I could see myself opting for it over the charred simplicity of the Zekeburger, but it's less of a sideshow than it looks.

The Hollywood outlet of Zeke's is located in one of the newer mall complexes that have started to replace the "mini" versions that define this city's landscape, and I can't say I am happy about it. That's not to say that mini malls look like good city planning—it's just that replacing them with glossy mega versions feels like a missed opportunity. Trudging past a Target and a Best Buy to get to my lunch is just a little too much suburbia for my taste. Luckily, the burger at Zeke's has just the right amount.

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